


Internal Emigration

by sariagray



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sex, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John decides to stay in Baker Street, with a new flatmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Internal Emigration

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely analineblue.

His blog is empty; purged of the past (though meticulously preserved on a hard drive for some distant, unlikely future). The flat, too, is tidied to extremes, heavy cardboard boxes lining the walls in squat, neat stacks.

 

His leg twinges on occasion, though not nearly as much as he’d anticipated; he can feel Mrs. Hudson’s stare on the back of his head, can imagine the creased brow and thin-lined mouth of her anxiety, as he slowly walks up the stairs – afraid his leg might suddenly give out and leave him a sprawled mess on the landing. It never does. More’s the pity – or perhaps, small mercies.

 

_Woman has moved in to the spare bedroom_ , he types carefully and then deletes with clanging fury. He tries _Have found flatmate_ and _No worries, I’m not left on my own._ All are erased before posting. He toys with a simple _Still here_ , but even that is tinged with a bitterness he doesn’t care to share.

 

The blog remains empty.

 

It has been three months.

 

 

* * *

 

Mrs. Hudson’s eyes had gone large when he told her, the day after their visit to the cemetery, that he would like to keep renting out 221B and would be searching for a new flatmate.

 

Two days later, before any advertisements had been posted, the bell rang with sharp determination.

 

“Hello,” Irene said, the right of her lip curling up. “I’m told you have a room going spare.”

 

He felt his body jerk at the sight of her and the reaction almost led to a slammed door and possibly, for Irene, a broken nose. Good (if misplaced) sense, however, prevailed.

 

“You’re not dead.”

 

“Aren’t I? I do hope to continue to be very dead, indeed. Is there room in this place for another ghost?”

 

It was the worst thing she could say, and that, somehow, made it the most right thing to say. He laughed and let her in.

 

Her clothes came in trunks the following day, along with linens and jewelry and personal effects. They filled the empty bedroom awkwardly until their holdings were packed away, and even then, the light from the window seemed slanted differently.

 

He hid himself away in his room and read until the movers had finished, when he only dared to creep downstairs for a quick cup of tea.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She curls on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, as she reads a crisp new paperback history of Gulags. She wears a long, cotton dressing gown over silk pajamas. He keeps an eye on her as he watches the television.

 

“Have you been to Russia?” she asks.

 

“No.”

 

“No,” she repeats. Then, after a moment, “You haven’t updated your blog.”

 

“No.”

 

“No.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, he makes her tea. By mistake.

 

He starts by filling the kettle and switching it on. He waits, staring out the window over the sink, though all he can really see is brick and the occasional daring pigeon. He grabs two cups, two teabags. He fills them with water and leaves one plain, tops the other with a bit of cream and sugar. He walks them into the sitting room and realizes his error as he hands Irene the latter cup.

 

He doesn’t know how she takes her tea, but she nods in some weak form of gratitude.

 

He has stopped cleaning his gun nightly, too.

 

If she notices anything, she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she dyes her hair a warm shade of blonde in the bathroom sink and keeps her observations to herself. It makes his heart feel half-empty.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She smokes lying down, her arm tilted behind her head where a crystal ashtray rests on the on the sofa.

 

He says, “Don’t burn anything,” and nothing else.

 

When the room fills with smoke that makes his eyes water, he simply retreats to his bedroom where he reads until he falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

She’s been watching him. It pricks down his neck like a familiar discomfort – that warm, observant stare without judgment but full of curiosity and hunger. Sometimes, he sits for hours with her, in silence, just to feel it.

 

Irene pays the rent on time, and contributes equally to the utilities and the necessities. Where the money comes from, he doesn’t know – and he doesn’t ask. If she has taken up her previous profession in her bedroom, it’s not any of his business; at least, if she has, she’s quiet about it.

 

She is quiet about a lot of things, as though her light hair is a new burden that has subdued her. That first day, on his doorstep, was the last real glimpse of the Irene Adler he once knew. It had been a funny sort of goodbye.

 

He’s changed, too.

 

The other ghost in the flat has rendered them ghosts of themselves.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mrs. Hudson doesn’t come up to fuss as often as she once had. She complains of her hip, touching it lightly as she speaks about it, and she rests her other hand over her chest. While she does, she shoots Irene narrow-eyed glances and offers only brisk, polite words. John watches her turn into an actual landlord before his very eyes and it leaves his chest tight.

 

One evening, when she leaves, Irene says, “Write something.”

 

He is temporarily disoriented. “What?”

 

“Write something. Just…for yourself. You can delete it after.”

 

She gets up from the sofa and retrieves his laptop from beneath a pile of unread newspapers. She hands it to him and for a brief moment, his fingers lose their grip and fumble over the latch.

 

Open, he starts to write. It is a string of nonsense about the weather.

 

“Why did you dye your hair?” he asks when the description of rain runs dry.

 

“I’m in hiding,” she says. “I’m dead.”

 

“That’s not the reason.”

 

She furrows her brow and stares at him – he watches her eyes dart from his ear to his hair back down to his neck, and then she laughs delightedly.

 

“No, it’s not. Very good. Why, then?”

 

His face heats, Pavlovian, and his murmurs, “I’m not him.”

 

“Neither,” she says, a sharp edge to her voice, “am I.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He deletes everything he’s written and starts again.

 

_I do what they expect. I work. I eat. I sleep. I stay alive. Inside, there is a revolt to replace what’s missing, so I’ll stay here until it plays out._

He deletes that, too, but quietly – without ferocity.

 

* * *

 

“Kiss me,” she says, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

 

Her blonde hair tumbles over her shoulders. He kisses her. And again.

 

She is warm beneath his hands, and her mouth is soft. She lets him back her against the wall and sighs, pliant, against his lips. He hadn’t expected that, but then, he hadn’t expected any of this.

 

She pulls away slightly. “We can, if you want…my bedroom – ”

 

“Shut up.”

 

He leads her, not looking back to see if she’s following, to the strangely lit room.

 

It has been one year.

 

 

 

*******

 

 

 

“A life for a life,” Sherlock says. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”

 

“I owe you a debt. Or, now you owe me a favor. Would it change your mind if it were the latter?”

 

Irene doesn’t know exactly how he’d found her here, but she had left enough of a trail to know that his appearance, sudden and dark, was probable.

 

What she didn’t anticipate was the round, wide shape of his eyes or the hollowness within them. His skin was sallow, too, and his body gaunt, like a thin wire frame for his expensive suit.

 

“You’re bleeding out,” she says when he doesn’t answer.

 

He glances quickly at his hands, tellingly, and she smirks. “Not physically – but my, are you ravaged.”

 

“Fine. A favor, then. Name your price.”

 

“Later.”

 

She finishes putting up her hair and turns to him. His eyes, though changed, still pierce her and read her very bones. It sends a delicious, electric thrill through her that fades quickly into something more comfortable and firm.

 

“Beg,” she says. “Twice.”

 

**End**


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